Online TV is a growing market, with the number of providers and variety in services strongly increasing, according to Goldmedia. Currently, there are 1,275 online TV channels in Germany, with about 151 million videos watched daily, mainly on free platforms (96 per cent).

By 2015 Goldmedia predict that figure will nearly triple to almost 390 million. Most traffic is generated by video sharing platforms like YouTube, but the market shares are increasing for broadcasters’ catch-up TV sites and other sites with professional content.

Use of video on the Internet is increasingly widespread. About two thirds (65 per cent) of all German internet users currently access video files at least occasionally (ARD/ZDF Online Study 2010). The high growth of broadband Internet connections, lower costs of transmitting large amounts of data, and increasingly better-equipped households all make online TV easier and more attractive to use.

Video sharing platforms and user-generated-content providers like YouTube have an above-average market share, accounting for 89 per cent of the 151 million videos accessed per day and 4.7 billion videos accessed per month in Germany. On the opposite end of the spectrum, with far fewer videos viewed, are mainly media and video centers and TV channels’ sub-brands, including ARD-Mediathek, ZDF-Mediathek, RTL Now, and Maxdome. These and communication portals like t-online.de, GMX.net, WEB.DE account for about four per cent of videos accessed.

Goldmedia forecasts that the number of videos watched will grow by 21 Per cent per year to 338 million in 2015, driven by user-generated content as well as TV channels’ online video-on-demand services. The high quality of the video-on-demand services’ content will generate longer usage times per visit, and the services will be more attractive for advertisers.